Wants to remove limits in strugging districts

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is calling on state lawmakers to remove limits on charter schools in underperforming school districts and strengthen the power of school administrators to intervene in struggling schools.

Menino, who recently announced he would not run for a sixth term, told the Legislature's Education Committee on Tuesday not to "wait for a school to fail before we give it the tools to succeed."

Menino said he wanted to expand on a 2010 education law that created "in-district" charter schools and has already led to the turnaround of several underperforming schools in the city.

But a coalition of teachers groups and school superintendents oppose lifting any cap on charter schools and back a separate bill that calls for a collaborative approach to improving schools that are drifting toward failure.

Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzkokhar Tsarnaev rested their case in his federal death penalty trial Tuesday after presenting a brief case aimed at showing his late older brother was the mastermind of the 2013 terror attack.